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Contest Details

Update! This contest is now over - See the contest log below for info about the winners!

Our 10th anniversary Trinket Pro boards have been wildly popular at the Hackaday Store. So much so that the original run of 500 sold out in just a few weeks. Thankfully, Adafruit has agreed to do a run of Hackaday.io branded Trinket Pro boards, which are now in stock. We've been having fun with the boards as well – so much so that we've decided to run an entire contest around the Trinket Pro.

Trinket Pro is an incredible platform for building tiny projects. Which is exactly why we've picked it for our next contest. We're looking for pocketable projects which you'd carry around with you every day. The projects should be useful, but we're taking a very broad definition of useful here. Anything from tools, to wearables, to jewelry and beyond will be acceptable for the contest.

Documented on Hackaday.io: To be eligible, you have to document your project on Hackaday.io. You should include enough information for the average electronics hobbyist to replicate your project. At the minimum, we're looking for pictures, schematics, code, and at least one video.

Check out the prizes and the details down below, then get hacking! The contest starts RIGHT NOW, and The deadline is 12:00am on January 3, 2015!

Prizes

First prize is a brand spankin' new Rigol DS1054Z scope.

Second prize is a Fluke 179 with a 6 piece industrial electronics tip kit

Third prize is a Hakko FX888D with a tip kit AND a Panavise 324 Electronic Work center.

The top 50 entrants will ALL get a custom T-shirt from the Hackaday store.

But wait, there's more!

Hackaday.io is all about documenting projects as they're being developed. We're going to reward those who start documenting their projects early rather than waiting until the last minute. Each week we will hold a random drawing of all entrants who A: are entered, and B: have at least one project log with an image and 50 words for that week. The idea here is to deter folks from grabbing the giveaways with empty projects. Winners will get a special prize from The Hackaday Store.

Eligibility for the top prizes requires at least 3 published project logs, and one video.

Eligible projects will include enough documentation to allow an average hobbyist to replicate the project. In the event there is any question on this, Hackaday Staffers will make the final determination.

Winners will be chosen by Hackaday staff, whose decisions are final. Any complaints about the decision process will be used to line the bird cage.

Hackaday Staff, Employees of SupplyFrame, or family of either are not eligible to take part in this contest. They are still encouraged to build awesome stuff and show it off though.

Contest Logs

It's time to announce the winners of the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest! We've had a great 5 weeks watching the projects come together. A team of Hackaday staffers spent their weekend watching videos and selecting their top entries based on the contest rules. We had a really hard time picking the top three – the competition was tight, and there were quite a few awesome projects.

Without further ado, here are the winners!

First Prize: 1337 3310 tool. [Mastro Gippo] really knocked this one out of the park. He built a swiss army knife of a tool out of the iconic Nokia 3310 candybar phone. 1337 3310 tool is a graphing voltage and current meter, an ohmmeter, a continuity tester that plays the original Nokia ringtone, and a gaming machine which can play Tetris. [Mastro Gippo] is 99% there with TV-B-Gone functionality as well. Amazingly, [Mastro Gippo] kept the Nokia look and feel in his user interface. He spent quite a bit of time grabbing data and bitmaps from the 3310's original ROM. [Mastro Gippo] is getting a Rigol DS1054Z scope to help iron out the bugs in his future projects!

Second Prize: Pavapro – portable AVR programmer. [Jaromir] built an incredible pocket-sized microcontroller programming tool. Pavapro can read and edit text files, handle serial I/O at 9600 baud, and burn AVR microcontrollers. If that's not enough, it can actually assemble AVR binaries from source. That's right, [Jaromir] managed to fit an entire assembler on the Pro Trinket's ATmega328 processor. Pavapro's 16 button keypad won't allow for much in the way of touch typing, but it does get the job done with T9 text entry. The device is also extensible, we're hoping [Jaromir] adds a few other architectures! PIC and MSP430 modes would be awesome! [Jaromir] will be receiving a Fluke 179 multimeter with a 6 piece industrial electronics tip kit! We're sure he'll put it to good use.

Third Prize:Robotic 3rd Hand. Let's face it. We can't all be Tony Stark. But [Tim] gets us a little bit closer with his awesome wearable entry. Need a tool? Just press the button, and Robotic 3rd Hand will give you a … hand. [Tim's] creation utilizes the Pro Trinket to drive a servo which moves an incredibly well designed and 3D printed mechanism that lifts a screwdriver off the wearer's wrist and places it into their hand. [Tim] originally was going to go with Electromyography (EMG) sensors to drive the hand, however he switched to a simple button when they proved problematic. We absolutely think this was the right decision for the contest – it's always better to have a simpler but working project rather than a complex yet unreliable one. That said, we'd love to see him circle back and give EMG another try! [Tim's] next project will be soldered up with the help of a Hakko FX888D with a tip kit. If things get a bit wobbly, he can use his new Panavise 324 Electronic Work center to keep everything steady.

If you didn't make the top three in this contest, don't give up! We're going to be having quite a few contests this year. The top 50 entrants will receive custom Hackaday EDC Contest T-shirts. Check out the full list of 50 on Hackday.io!

Yeah, I don't think mine made it far enough for detailed instructions. Going from idea to polished product in a month, over the holidays, is quite the task. I think i have enough out there for someone to replicate my progress, it even if its not complete.

I just commented over in the hackaday.io feedback about this, the page views for my project doesn't seem to be working. Not sure if that gets factored into the judging of the projects, but I thought it should be pointed out.

Also, has there been any announcement about when results of judging will be announced?

Yeah, this is all a bit confusing... Earlier in the contest rules it says you have to use a Trinket Pro, later it says one option is "a board you have built and populated yourself *based on the .. design*."
"Based on" seems loose. Am thinkink since this is a site for *hackers*, that modifications should be allowable... Mention was made, in an earlier comment, about "unfair advantage", so keep that in mind. My project uses 16MHz at 3.3V (overclocking, replacing a reglator) so I may well be disqualified. OTOH, the design rules say it should be battery-powered, so things like running at 5V and not doing everything possible to reduce power-consumption seems a bit limiting.

The board should be based on the trinket - same processor, similar power and support components, approximately the same size. You are free to overclock your custom board, run it at whatever voltage you want, etc.
From what you've said, nothing would disqualify you. I'm not looking to disqualify people at the last minute either - I'm trying to contact anyone who doesn't fit the contest rules earlier rather than later.

- One project that doesn't mention any Trinket, and is based on two non-Trinket devices. However, it mentions an ATmega328P, which neither of those two devices has, suggesting that it will use a Trinket.

- One project that was completed four months ago and is based on an "ATmega16" (168?). Perhaps the creator plans to make a new Trinket-based version, but this is not apparent.

- One software-heavy Raspberry Pi-based project that doesn't seem to have any use for a Trinket.

I wonder if the trinket used in your project has to actually be powered up and doing something, or is it acceptable to just have it glued on top as a decoration. I just figured out a way to do mine with just the esp8266...

Hey Dave! I've seen the entries that don't have a Pro trinket (or a design based on the Pro trinket) , and I've gotten in contact with the creators. A couple were submitted by accident. Others were simple misunderstandings of the rules.
We're removing the ones that don't fit, but only after talking to the creators.

Good to know, thanks Adam! I was just curious - some projects could have been refitted with a trinket pro and the creator was about to mention that in a log or so - which would be totally fine and that must be communicated as you did - well done :)

Hey there, is an entry still valid if implemented on a bigger atmega or are we bound to use the 328p? I might need extra ROM/RAM for my project and adding external memory would make me lose precious clock cycles...

Good luck finding a Pro Trinket with any microcontroller other than the 328P. I suppose if you built your Trinket yourself using a bigger microcontroller it MIGHT be eligible—I'd bet not. And I don't know of any bigger pin-compatible microcontrollers, anyway.

I actually asked Adam Fabio in private if it was possible to switch over a more resourceful mcu like an ATMega644 and he kindly answered that "it would give an unfair advantage" so that's not an option.

On second thought, that's actually better as I will now work for the first time with an external Flash ROM chip for data storage on my project. :D

Hey Michele, I'm glad the external flash chip will solve your space issues. As far as processors go, I'm trying to keep a level playing field with everyone having the same processor. (the 328), as that's what is in the Pro Trinket.

It's not just Europeans... as a Canadian, we have to deal with pretty much every format out there as we are too indecisive to figure out the right way. It is incredibly annoying an quite often ambiguous.